


Half Full

by TalkingAnimals



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (it is), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Relationship, Canon Asexual Character, M/M, Other, but if you look for jon's dysphoria...you will find it Very Easily, even though it's not discussed in this fic, fellas is it gay to phaze halfway through a hot dead guy you've got a crush on?, jon is nonbinary so honourary other ship tag, weird ghost shennanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:55:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22607353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalkingAnimals/pseuds/TalkingAnimals
Summary: In theory, Jon and Gerry are trying to use the Beholding to lift Gerry's ghost back into reality, to See the reality of him fleshed out and alive, freed from one entity through the dedication of another.In practice, however, they're getting their arms stuck to each other whenever they inevitably try to touch each other, and finding a lot of unnecessary reasons to touch each other.Rated mature just to be safe. There's no sex, but the magic intimacy scene near the end gets a bit intense at points. Warrants a heads up.(Vaguely based on a blurb I posted ages ago here, for vague worldbuilding context:https://jongerry.tumblr.com/post/189589085428/)
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 26
Kudos: 211
Collections: The Magnus Archives Rare Pairs 2020





	Half Full

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fairbanks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairbanks/gifts).



The first time it happens, it's technically a sign of progress. 

Jon had been walking back down to the archives, tea in hand, nose buried in information as he refused to let his mind be unoccupied for even a moment. Gerry had gotten used to it, to Jon not watching where he was going, always too distracted not to walk right through him on the way to his desk, and to be fair Gerry didn't _need_ to pace around the centre of the room quite as much as he did, but. Being a ghost was _boring_ , frankly. He couldn't count the number of times Jon had impatiently noted, " your _hair_ is in my _shoulder_ again, Gerry" as he leaned over to catch some if the secondhand excitement off of whatever Jon had been reading. 

So the first time Jon _fails_ to pass through Gerry, it's a sign of progress: an indication that the work they'd been putting in to draw him into reality by Beholding the nature of his concrete form was actually paying off. 

This fact, however, seemed less immediately relevant to Jon than the fact that he was now stuck inside a ghost. 

" _Jon_ \--" 

"I'm _trying_ to dislodge us, hold _on_ \--" 

"Perhaps if we watched where we were going a little more often while trying to corporealize me this wouldn't be a problem," Gerry's voice is over his ear, through his jaw, rumbling under his own tongue as tension undercuts friendly mockery. Jon is all strained grunts and frustrated wheezes, buzzing up and down through Gerry's conception of his skull as he fails to make any progress whatsoever. 

"Perhaps another approach besides vague flailing?" Gerry pitches, feeling the mesh of his arm halfway through Jon's, struggling pointlessly under the ghostly possession. Jon just huffs, arms shooting out to grip the shelf of the only bookcase in reach. It's an unsteady grip, twitching fingers on wood as the atoms of him all shift and burble under the company of another. 

"I was _trying_ to make _exactly_ this sort of progress--" Jon insists, failing entirely to convince the ghost lodged halfway through his brain. 

"Sure," Gerry clips, watching the expectant grip of Jon's arms still sprouting out of his, 

"Am I expected to _do_ something here or...?" 

" _Obviously_ you should be trying to wrench yourself _out_ \--" Jon huffs, disorienting hum if half-wrung death crawling over his arms from their points of attachment. Gerry returns the sound, grumble under breath, before throwing himself backwards with the extent of his immaterial strength. 

There is wood under Jon's head, quick, disorienting pain that his arms grab before his brain can register, an uncoordinated twist of the spine as he feels his head spin, ass making sharp contact with the ground as he feels Gerry's laugh rumbling out from behind his ear. He can't move, not really, and the angle Gerry's leg now juts out from one of his own looks _insane_ , twisted backwards and halfway through the floor as he watches a half-loose arm struggle for purchase on his leg. He _really_ can't move, he realizes, and he rakes his eyes up and down the impossible interlocking of limbs – ghost and flesh – that lock him in place. He feels the way his shoulders shake, light rumble that rolls through the cavity of Gerry's chest, then his head thrown back as laughter bounces on surrounding wood and brick. Gerry has already been laughing, already rolling back his shoulders into Jon and squeezing his eyes with the force of it, increasingly impossible to control with every twitch of muscle that reminds them how _locked_ they are, the fruitlessness of struggle and goal. Jon leans on a bent arm, lodged underneath him as he shakes with the uneven cadence of his laughter, the under-worked muscles of joy rattling beside the bones in Gerry's throat. The futility of an anger-spun project, lodged at odd angles om the floor and wracked with hysterics, weeping on the floor of the archives. 

They share laughs, sometimes: dry laughs and chuckles, strained under the pressure of the life that pinches their humanity, pulls it taut, and they get along: time passed working on the _seeing_ of Gerry's life, his _reality_ needing some slack to the constant tension. Jon throws out the odd joke, the rare smile over the lip of a statement or a cup of coffee, and Gerry's got a sense of humour that weaves its way through the meat of his every conversation that Jon appreciates. But there's a finality to this—a _release_ , precedents dissolved and social structure finally shattered as they laugh in a disorganized heap on the floor, helpless and hopelessly intertwined. 

They're still rattled with the tail ends of it when Basira comes down, Jon catching his breath and Gerry descended into the smoker's cough his memory retained from life, and Jon tries fruitlessly to rub his eyes when she makes herself known. 

“…Need some help there, Jon?” Basira ventures, and she'd been trying not to be too comfortable around the _ghost_ project, _really_ trying, 

“Yes, Basira, that would be--" Another choked-down laugh, another twitch of an arm that can't reach up to wipe his face, 

“That would be _lovely_.” 

👻👻👻

It's Basira who has to grab Gerry in the end, though she resists, insistent that she's no more _perceptive_ than Melanie is, not really. But she's the one tasked with gripping the sleeves coating Gerry's upper arms, his focus and Sight all rolled into his shoulders as Melanie grabs Jon by one arm and his waist, and _pulls_ . It's a lot of focus a frustrated grunting, a lot of the two women rolling their eyes at Jon's reluctant chuckles and Gerry's shameless guffaws , but they _do_ manage to wrench the two apart . Gerry stumbles through the floor as Basira dodges to the side, tries to grab onto surrounding objects as he pulses in and out of physicality, and Jon bumps flush against the compact fury that is Melanie, apologizing profusely. The stupidity catches them, too, a rare laugh between the staff as Melanie looks over Jon's shoulder, locks Basira under bouncing eyes. The laughs are tight, always tight, but the air loosens for a while: relaxes its weight around Gerry's presence, Jon's latest _project_. 

At least as far as the staff not currently _fusing_ with it are concerned.

👻👻👻

"This is new." Gerry says from behind him one morning, and Jon's neck processes the familiar shiver of Gerry's fingers as they pass through him. He touches the point of contact on reflex, feeling the dry crumble of mismanaged healing under his fingertips. 

"It's...a lot easier to make impulse decisions than it used to be, for better or worse." Jon offers, hands returning to his desk after feeling the residuals of Gerry's touch fading away. 

"Not healing very well." Gerry notes, and Jon can feel his eyes still scrolling over the lines of ink. 

"All I _do_ is heal, how is that possible?" Jon groans, leaning back in his chair with an excess of frustration that pulls a fond laugh out of Gerry. 

"Not sure it's really life threatening enough to worry your whole system over, Jon. Don't actually think the beholding _cares_ if you've got skin flaking off." 

"I've noticed it doesn't have much investment in the _cosmetic_ health of my body overall-- I've already died and my body still had the nerve to give me a _spot_." 

Jon feels the fingers on his back when Gerry laughs, real this time as they grip the back of the chair, sending his spine forward as it arches awkwardly around them. 

"Can only manage to be solid when it's going to knock me out of my seat, can you?" And Jon turns as he flattens his eyes at Gerry, draws out a low chuckle. 

"Still a work in progress here, you know." 

Jon rolls his eyes, moves to turn back around before Gerry's question pitches upward, tense with interest. 

"So...can I see it?" 

"Sounded like you just did, to me." 

Gerry's turn for an eye roll, met with a quick smirk. 

"Come on, I promise I've seen _worse_ healing jobs, _much_ worse." 

Jon makes a show of leaning onto his hand, propped up by one elbow on his desk, and holds Gerry with as little patience as his face can muster. 

"On _myself_ , too. Here, we can even trade." 

Gerry pops one foot up on the edge of the desk, the entire heel of his boot shooting through the wood as his heel rests on the edge. A ghostly hand rolls over his pant leg, then, curls it up to expose what Jon _believes_ is supposed to be an eyeball, faded blue and patchy under crushed layers of leg hair. 

"A prototype for the rest of them?" Jon pitches, unable to stop himself from smiling behind his hand. It is _charmingly_ bad, and sort of an endearing note to Gerry's entire character, he thinks. Gerry just shakes his head in response, fingers with their crisp black ink still curled under the cuff of his pants. 

"Those are _eyes_ , Jon, properly framed with eyelid and where they ought to be. _This_ is a gross, cool, blood-dripping _eyeball_ , that I did when I was sixteen." 

He points to the trail of blood, almost translucent on his leg, and absolutely _not_ the shape or character of liquid as it falls under the eye in chunks. Jon's smile widens, and he has to press his hand to his face. 

"See? You don't want to turn out like me, do you? Let me look at it." 

And Gerry moves to fuss at his collar, receiving a hand that floats through his fingers as it tries to bat him away. 

"You're not going to see much from the _collar_ , and I am _not_ taking my shirt off in the archives." 

Gerry whistles. 

"That big, huh?" 

He catches Jon, blanched and blushing as he turns around, rubbing another self-conscious hand over it as he does. 

"It's not— _that_ big, I just don't think a shirt collar is a particularly good— _vantage_ point." He grumbles. 

"And I assume you were supposed to buy something to take care of it that you _totally_ ignored because you've got big, spooky healing powers?" Even without turning around, he can see the way Gerry lifts his eyebrows. He lets out a belaboured sigh, then, leaning himself back in the chair so he can _properly_ level a look at Gerry. 

"I promise the complimentary tube of cream is sitting _somewhere_ in the flat, I'll even _behold_ what countertop it's sitting on for you if you're so curious." 

Gerry is attempting some facsimile of a lean on the lip of the desk, eyebrows still perched higher on his face than Jon thinks is _really_ necessary. 

"Lead the way, then, oh beholder of ointment." 

Jon's face scrunches, frustrated pinch of eyebrows over his glasses. 

"Excuse me?" Gerry tries not to laugh, fails. 

"I'm not letting good art go to waste. Come on, you're going to give your haunted guest an apartment tour." 

"Sure you're not just looking for an excuse to haunt it yourself?" And despite his objections, Jon's eyes flick from the frantic home of obsessive thought on his desk to the crumple of jacket in the corner. 

"I'll decide if it needs that kind of sprucing up when we get there, won't I?" And Gerry follows the eyes of the Eye, thankful for the stilling of Jon's tapping pen and bouncing leg, symptomatic tics of paranormally induced excess. 

👻👻👻

“ _Stop_ trying to pass through the door before I've opened it. We are _trying_ to encourage you to be _solid_.” 

Gerry's shoulder leans on the wood of the door beside him, carrying the suspicious weight of his lean as his shoulder struggles to pass through it. 

“You're no fun,” 

Jon catches his grin in the corner of his eye, then catches his stumble as the door swings inward, carrying Gerry's shoulder in with it. 

“No fun at all…” Jon laughs to himself as he watches Gerry fumble to catch himself om the door frame, walking through as Gerry still struggles behind him. He wrenches his shoulder free, watches as Jon flips a light switch pointlessly before sighing and giving up, moving on. 

“Well. I suppose I shouldn't be _surprised_ , it's not like anyone was conscious enough to be paying off electric.” 

Gerry watches as Jon makes his way through the kitchen, keys tossed on the first surface he passes, nervous hand yanking on the zipper of his coat as he passes over the fridge, pauses at the washing machine nestled in one corner. He pulls a timid inch or two of space between its interior and the door, sighing a light note of calm as he remarks, “well, _that's_ a relief" before moving further into the apartment. He turns when he feels the absence of ghostly presence on his heels, catching Gerry over his shoulder with his coat wrenched halfway off. 

“Something the matter? I’m hoping you’re not about to tell me my flat is _already_ haunted. I don’t have the energy to deal with learning that, frankly, so it had better not be—” It stops midway from genuine questioning and pivots into self-directed grumbles as Jon returns to fighting the too-tight arms of his jacket, a constant carousel of frustrated soliloquy in lieu of conversation. 

“Nope,” Gerry counters, hands still struggling underneath him as he fights his own apparel-related battle, 

“Just trying to be polite. Boots take a while to get off, is all.” 

His eyes are downcast, missing entirely the smile that curls up Jon’s cheeks in response. 

“Sorry, you’re...taking off your shoes?’ 

“Yeah, obviously. A little bit of demonic upbringing doesn’t mean I don’t have _manners_.” 

“Right, of course, yes...you’re just. You’re just taking off the boots we’re trying to—trying to _will_ into existence with hands that we’re _also_ trying to—to coax into some level of _reality_ and the, um—hah!” Jon is already losing himself, bent halfway over with one hand over his face and the other still holding one sleeve of his jacket, composed flow of sentence chopped into jumpy, elated pieces. 

“Do you suppose you’re going to—going to be tracking some _haunted dirt_ in here with you?” 

Gerry’s response is silent focus, fingers that knit themselves carefully, delicate through the twisting braids of laces, puncture into each other and through the twist of string until they catch, hold the material, solid, in the real flesh of hands. And when Jon is finished his laugh, his unwinding and re-spindling, he does _watch_ : does take in the careful focus and soft centring of Gerry’s face as he twists his hands, one over the other, into reality, into feeling aspects of a body, a curated existence that is once again twisted into blood and bone and fabric, marked with callus and bruise. When he finishes one boot, he holds it up triumphantly, one eyebrow cocked at Jon. 

“ _Very_ impressive.” Jon drones. 

He has to duck to avoid the oncoming boot. 

“ _You’re_ the one who wants me to _focus_ on my own reality. Don’t be mad I used a little decorum to practice being tangible.” 

The boot isn’t particularly _solid_ when unattached to Gerry, and Jon struggles to lift it back up off the floor a few times before he’s successful, rolling it between both his hands when he finally manages. 

He catches two socked feet under the view of his hands, then, black and grey and one, he believes, that’s been put on inside out. 

“I’m going to need that back, eventually, you know.” He smirks, and Jon pans his way back up to the dangling metal and curtain of black, now at eye level. He watches the careful tread Gerry makes to the entrance when he hands the boot back, smiles as his mind contrasts it with the high velocity of its first passage through the flat. Gerry's walk is slow, careful as he moves over the floor, adjusting to the feel of it under his socked feet. It's disarming, for a moment, Gerry without the imposing height and silhouette, the way he moves through Jon's front hall naturally, the barest bristle of nerves on his heels. 

“Alright,” Gerry offers, back in front of Jon, eyes still level with his own. It really _is_ disorienting to have him so close, Jon thinks, the intimacy of him brought down to his actual height. Gerry ignores the light staring, presses on, 

“Lead the way.” 

👻👻👻

They opt for the bedroom, Jon rationalizing the need for an _actual_ change of clothes, not the scrambled outfits of the archives that hadn't been ransacked by Basira . Jon can hear Gerry struggling with the reality of his jacket as he moves through the bathroom, having to pretend to look for a tube of ointment that, frankly, had just been sitting in his back pocket. When he returns, it's another layer of celebrity shed from Gerard, now standing in his bedroom looking almost… _civilian_ , one hand shoved into a pocket while the other tugs at a t-shirt sleeve, hugged tight to a thick arm. He looks up when Jon returns from the superfluous ointment hunt, raising a hand in a small wave. 

“Let's…get this over with.” Jon sighs, affected to the point of absurdity, and Gerry relaxes into a smile. 

👻👻👻

Jon removes a single article of clothing in a way that makes Gerry feel like he's an accessory to a crime, Jon twitching his fingers at the hem of his shirt and finding stimuli around the room to throw his eyes over as he stalls. When it finally peels up and over his head, he folds it tightly and sits it on the foot of the bed, arms drawn quickly to his sides the moment he does so. His walk back over to Gerry is dutiful, a straight line across the floor before him drops himself down, arms sitting tightly over his crossed legs. He sits, back to Gerry, silently contemplating his hands, and Gerry has to lean back on his hand just to gain some distance from the energy. 

"Are you...alright?" Gerry ventures, watching the frantic nod from Jon in response. 

"Do you...need a minute?"

"No, I'm fine." Jon reassures, and it surprises Gerry that his voice is perfectly even, completely at odds with the tense structuring of his body. 

"Pretty tense for being fine, but alright." Gerry clicks his tongue, trying to maintain enough focus to properly unscrew the tube of cream to no avail. 

"I'm not necessarily that... _comfortable_ , but I'm fine, I promise." He pauses before turning his head over one shoulder, meeting eyes with Gerry to cement the promise. The smile Gerry returns is lopsided, and he half-heartedly rolls the ointment to one side of Jon's leg. 

"Only if you're sure. I wasn't trying to be... _pushy_ , just...got a little excited, is all. You'll need to open that for me, by the way." 

Jon nods, picking up the tube and uncapping it easily with the solid matter of his hands, 

"Someone's going to have to see it _eventually_ , otherwise what's the point? It might as well be someone who's invested in hounding me about it." 

He gives Gerry a smirk, and it's familiar enough in its comfort that he starts to relax. 

"Should've worn a higher collared shirt if you wanted to keep it a surprise. Or wait 'til it all healed over since you're so intent on not taking care of it." 

He holds out his palms, then, fingertips hovering under the nozzle in Jon's hand: 

"You're squeezing that out for me, by the way, 'cause I'm not dealing with that thing again. Just don't empty out half the tube on my hands." 

And Jon laughs, one of those airy ones under the breath, like he's enjoying a private joke at Gerry's expense. He concedes, though, laying one hand under Gerry's to steady them despite their semi spectral state. The feeling is familiar, even in his present state of feeling, and he can feel the way Jon just barely rests under the bottom of his hands, careful not to push through them. When Jon turns after returning the cap, there's a beat of silence behind him, then a pinched note from Gerry as he squeezes out an, 

"Eugh," 

behind Jon. 

"Everything alright back there?" 

"The feeling of this stuff sinking _through_ your fingers...I can’t exactly recommend." 

This earns a chuckle, and Gerry watches the subtle bounce of Jon's shoulders from behind. And on his shoulders, _god_ \-- He hadn't taken a moment to actually _look_ at it after Jon had been so weird, and he realizes now that it's the first time he's properly looking at it since Jon had taken off his shirt. 

No colour, which he'd sort-of anticipated, but the figures are what really begin to shock him as he rolls his eyes over Jon's back. He'd expected something-- _sensible_ , maybe _grim_ or _succinct_ but not...organic shapes and winding lines of grey. The shape he'd spotted at the top was the moon, like he'd thought, but the rolling patterns of petals and fauna branching out from under it feel so _sincere_ he has to stop a moment to process his shock. Not at the subject matter, maybe, not _really_ , just-- the intimacy of seeing it, the laying bare of something nowhere near the front of Jon's projected image. 

"Still having trouble with the ghost hands?" Jon pitches, though he doesn't turn around. Gerry shakes his head. 

"No, I was just...looking. It's nice." 

"Oh." Jon swallows, "Um...thank you." 

Gerry wants to pry, wants to ask questions and dig into parts of Jon reflected along his spine, but the air is so thick already, he just lifts up his hands. 

"This is really only two days old?" 

"Yes," Jon nods, "I wouldn't _lie_ about that. Could have gotten away with it a bit more if it was _actually_ past the healing threshold." 

And there is a small gasp from Jon, almost inaudible, when Gerry's fingers finally sink into his skin, the cool wet feeling of the balm hitting his back. He knows Jon is hoping he didn't hear it, so he pretends he didn't, rolling his finger carefully down one section of a rabbit's ear. He can feel the depth his finger has to breach to actually transfer anything onto Jon's back, and he hopes Jon can't feel the prying fingertips underneath the slide of gel. He is _trying_ to focus enough not to phase _right_ through him. 

He can feel the tension of Jon's muscle under his hands, the focus on the tips of his fingers adding resistance as he repeats the motions: practicing the act of touch. His lungs grasp at reality in his chest as he feels his focus drift to his breathing, aware of his throat, his mouth as he hovers over Jon's back, remembers the need to swallow when silence sinks too long between two people. Jon lets out a breath of his own; the mirror of Gerry's. It accompanies the slow unknitting of Jon's muscles under Gerry's hand, the subtle degrees of relaxation that finally start to work their way under Jon's skin. 

Another breath leaves him, then, heavy and deep, too loud for either one of them to ignore, and Jon twitches strain back into his spine, 

"S-sorry," He apologizes, pressure sat along his vertebrae that Gerry unconsciously begins to press. 

"God forbid you relax for once, Jon." He laughs, but it's gentle, rolling over the side of Jon's ear. 

"You the kind of person to keep your eyes open when the hairdresser washes your hair, too?" 

The tension does not leave Jon's back as Gerry finds himself drifting slightly south from the edges of ink, smoothing a line down taut braids of muscle. 

"Are you not...supposed to?" Jon finally questions, and in Gerry's estimation it's _comically_ meek. He receives, in exchange, that familiar warm chuckle, paired with fingers humming lightly over the lines of his back. 

“It’s supposed to be _relaxing._ Folks feel like they’re doing a bad job if you’re bug-eyed staring at the ceiling the whole time.” 

And that small breath of quiet, conversation laid out slow and careful as Jon feels a palm run over the base of his neck, lets himself relax into the touch. 

“I, uh, fell asleep the last time I went, actually. Wasn’t that used to... _properly_ relaxing I guess and I just relaxed for a moment and passed right out. 

Gerry feels another shift under his hand, watches Jon lean forward onto his knees as his breathing evens out, deepens to the base of his lungs. Feels the warmth and still of his back as his skin floats under the surface, runs soft lines along the wet tissue along the other side of his back, nicer on Gerry’s palms than he wants it to be. It’s a gentle cacophony of wet and warm that rolls under his hands, sinew and blood and healing balm all a soft mire under his skin as he works, listens for the soft croon of Jon’s breathing to hitch when he feels the invasion into the meat of his back. 

It doesn’t, though: just flows calmly in and out over a wet lip as he lets his muscles drop, suspended in the rest of wakeful absence. 

Gerry runs out of words, all focus and physicality as he feels the way Jon’s back rises and falls with his breathing. His skin will rise over Gerry, then fall back off in rhythmic waves as Gerry keeps his hand steady, so he does, for a moment: just feeling the bare interlocking of he and Jon's skin. 

“When was the last time you… _went_ to a hairdresser?” Jon asks, relaxation a thick note in his throat, and it shocks Gerry back into remembering to move. 

“Uh—2003.” Gerry admits, and there's a contented hum from Jon in place of the laugh he’d expected. 

“Long time to go without someone looking after you.” Jon muses, and it sings through Gerry's core, plucked ferociously in the meat of his spirit. 

“Yeah, well. A lot of looking after myself in general. Might as well extend it to a little hair snipping, even if your ungrateful little statement givers want to give me grief for it.” And Jon does laugh this time: unwound and smooth through Gerry’s ears. 

“I _told you_ you might not like reading the ones with you in them. I can’t be responsible for any hurt feelings over misrepresentation. 

“Sure. Like _anyone_ could resist that.” Gerry laughs, hand sliding through muscle towards the centre of Jon’s back 

“Especially after _Gertrude_ never—” 

“ _Watch it._ ” Jon says: quickly, terse as his back straightens out. Gerry’s got one finger resting on a vertebra (third thoracic, Jon’s mind could have pulled if he’d asked), and it feels the pinch of tension that lights Jon into stasis. Gerry hesitates for a moment, lifts the finger up and out and off, hovering again beyond the skin as his mind traces Jon’s meaning. 

“...Sorry?” He fumbles, watching the uneven shine that rolls over the black and greys of Jon’s upper back. 

“ _Don’t_ touch my spine like that.” Jon says, and there’s no undercurrent of _asking_ , of requisition of permission. Just a deep breath in through his nose, then a belated: 

“ _Please._ " 

Gerry nods dumbly behind him, draws his own hair over his ear in an attempt to push past the moment. He watches the way Jon’s back stays straight, stiff, hands suspended up on the rough angles of his lifted arms. 

“You want me to leave it alone altogether? It, uh. I mean, I don’t mind. It’s not too big an area, anyway—” 

Jon sighs, brows knit, breathing a rattle heaving along the bones of his ribs as he thinks. Shakes his head, then again, trying to dislodge a deeply dug distress: the breaking of a moment of peace. 

“No, you’re—it’s fine. Just...do it quickly, please.” 

Despite his assertion, Gerry’s hand finds the top of Jon’s shoulder, instead: runs a careful curve over a line already tended to, fingertips braced soft over skin that graces joint. 

“You sure? It’s not the end of the world if it’s a little crunchy in the middle. Can even hold me saying so over my head later if you want.” 

This _does_ get a dry chuckle from Jon, a descent of Gerry’s stomach back into its home as he works a superfluous swirl along Jon’s shoulder, watches his strained attempts to return to relax. 

“In for a penny,” Jon starts, slowly coaxing his body back into calm. 

“I can save it for last, at least. Still got some wriggling _fauna_ to tend to, anyway.” 

“However you'd like.” Jon smiles, weak but fond. His back still finds itself fighting to press into Gerry's fingers as he moves, tracing lines over the leftmost side of the scatter of ink, brushing an errant hair off the subject of his touch. 

“You've got a lot of this, huh?” Gerry says it quietly, leaning over Jon's shoulder as he grabs a handful of hair, voice rumbling down the curves of Jon's ear as he speaks. 

“I hope you noticing that _now_ doesn't mean it's gotten covered in _slime_.” And despite the grumbling, his eyes stay closed, head turning slightly under Gerry's hand. 

“Besides all the ghostly ectoplasm I've been getting on it? No, you're fine.” He laughs, and he catches the way Jon follows his hand as he sweeps the hair from one shoulder over to the other. Jon frowns at the wall. 

“There hasn’t been anything left on me the other times I’ve made contact with you, why—ah. Sorry, that was a joke.” 

Gerry thinks he could almost _hear_ Jon mouthing the world “ _ectoplasm_ ” in frustrated confusion. 

“It was, but I’m glad to hear you have so little faith in the _cleanliness_ of my spirit. You don’t brush this much, do you?” 

“Your...spirit?” 

“Your _hair_ , Jon. Looks like a bad knitting project back here.” Jon feels the gentle tug before he can respond, the work of fingers weaving through knots and tugging them in gentle circles, then sliding through the unhindered result. Gerry drags his fingers down carefully, watching the parting strands and occasional strays that pass through his fingers, glancing, again, over Jon’s back as he reaches the end. 

“I don’t have much energy for...most grooming anymore, frankly.” Jon sighs, and shame bites at the ends of it, as he feels Gerry’s finger looping through another tangled twirl of brown and grey 

“I _try_ , but...the days don’t pass very clearly anymore. I’m not always sure when things stop or start or how long it’s been since I’ve—showered?” Jon bites the inside of his cheek with this admission, feels the shameful answers fighting to become recalcitrant under the perceived scrutiny. Gerry just hums, though, tugs down on another tangled curl. 

“Yeah. It gets real hard to keep track, sometimes,” The back of Gerry’s fingers roll down his neck, this time, thumb on the other side of the strand of hair that runs through his palm, 

“Won’t think it’s rude if you need to grab one while you’re here, by the way. You’re _supposed_ to be doing this after you shower, anyway, but...I sort-of doubt your body would let it get infected all that badly, anyway. You ever think of keeping it up?” 

“I can’t be so bad at keeping up the habit that you’re asking me _that_.” 

“Not _showering_ , Jon, I promise.” And the words should be mocking, but they’re soft, gentle as Gerry curls his hand into a spot above Jon’s ear, careful as they glance over the grey of his temple, 

“The hair. It’s a lot easier to manage if it’s not falling everywhere at this length, I promise.” 

Jon sighs. 

“I think I’ve been...avoiding it,” He admits, 

“Telling myself I was still going to cut it again at some point. I suppose I should probably stop pretending at this point, shouldn’t I?” 

He feels both hands, then, as Gerry lifts the bulk of his hair, running another round of fingertips down its length after it’s safely contained in one hand. 

“Am I going to threaten your vanity if I put it up? Might save it from getting _slimed_.” 

“Put it—” And Jon catches the faraway note in his voice at the attention, has to clear his throat, 

"Sorry, put it up _how_ exactly?” 

There’s an elastic presented to one side of his face in response, stretched in a loose circle around Gerry’s five fingers as he presents it worldessly to Jon. Jon grabs it with both hands, ignores Gerry’s shocked noise of protest, holding it up to the light spilling in from his window. 

“Where did you get this?” Jon breathes, watching the way light curls over the edges of the fabric, tactile reality haloed around his hand. 

“My pocket?” Gerry huffs, impatiently scooping up Jon’s escaping hair as his head moves, refuses to steady, 

“Got to keep them on hand if your hair’s this long. Bad gig to have hair flapping around in, sometimes. A little too easy for something to grab onto.” 

Jon doesn’t follow his impatience, doesn’t walk his mind along the frustrated tone, still marveling at the small circle of bound elastic and metal cinch that dangles in the air above him. 

“So you remember that from being alive...and _here it is_ .” He smiles, looks at the absence of _death_ on the object, the surviving mettle of spirit. 

“...Yeah. Looks like, huh.” Gerry says. It finally catches him, too, the moment of elated discovery as Jon grins up at the tiny black circle. The absurdity of marveling at hair elastics hit them in different punctuations after the high, Jon turning to deposit it deftly back into Gerry’s hand. 

He takes Gerry's advice, a bit, closing his eyes as he feels hands once again pass through his hair, and Gerry watches the way Jon's head rolls into his hand when he runs fingers through the strands of grey resting over his ear, takes in the light sounds of his breath. 

It's a low bun, loose, just enough to keep it off Jon's back without disrupting his sense of Jon's aesthetic sensibilities, and he lets himself shift to catch how it looks on Jon's face. 

“Hmm. Cute.” He notes, and Jon doesn't look at him. 

“I'm—I’m sure it's fine, Gerry. Thank you.” He swallows. 

“Alright, well. Now that your hair’s not in any danger—goop me.” 

“I’m sorry— _goop_ you?” 

Gerry’s hand is held out, flat, just to the left of Jon’s arm. 

“Yeah, unless you want the rest of this tattoo healing _entirely_ with ghost ectoplasm.” 

Jon sighs, diligently spreads another glossy smear of ‘bepanthen plus’ through Gerry’s fingerprints. The elapsed time of their shared activity is making him seriously doubt the _plus_ aspect. 

“I didn’t think this was _quite_ this extensive of a project, frankly.” 

“Oh it’s not, usually.” Gerry explains, doesn’t explain further. 

“It’s spine time now, by the way. You want to...hold your breath while I do it, or something?” 

“No. I don’t think I can express how much I _don’t_ want my breathing restricted, actually.” 

“Gotcha.” 

Gerry _does_ work quick, to his credit, and Jon holds a breath or two in without meaning to, Gerry giving him a small pat on the right arm when he's finished. The breath Jon lets out is all nerves, and there's a note of exhaustion, plucked light over his spirit, that stirs a note of guilt in Gerry's core. 

“I-I'm sorry, by the way, for the weirdness about this all, it—it's just been a very long time since I was touched like this by some _one_ and not a…a some _thing_.” 

Gerry's hand stays, running a thumb up and down Jon's shoulder as he listens, stalling the inevitable moment of broken contact. 

“Yeah,” He admits, and the thumb stills, joins the rest of his hand as it slides down, rests in the meeting of Jon's arm, 

“Me too.” 

There is a space of this, filled with silence and the soft warmth of Gerry on Jon's arm, still lightly passing through the skin as they sit together. The window is dull and lilac, filled with burbling clouds and they both watch it in lieu of the necessity of conversation. 

When Jon starts to shiver, react in his small frame to the darkening sky in an unheated room, Gerry finally breaks, rolling himself onto his knees behind Jon. 

“Well, if you’ve got to get changed I’ll leave you. Go start knocking around precious heirlooms in your living room for a bit.” 

“You’re going to--” Jon starts, catching himself with a laugh, 

“Alright. Have fun, then.” 

“Mm,” Is all he gets, Gerry propped up behind him on the balls of his feet for a moment, swaying in the last stage before action, 

“And for the record, it usually doesn't take quite this long because…it's not usually quite this nice.” 

And then Gerry is up, brisk out the door and closing it tightly, securely behind him. 

👻👻👻

When exhaustion finally hits, routine drops him onto the couch, comfort ignored in favour of convenience. When he rolls over, hand tucking under hip, there's resistance over his shoulders, hugging him to the back of the couch in a way that makes him shift around blearily. It's only when a voice cuts through his mind that he finally cracks an eye: 

"Uh, Jon?" 

There is hair, long and satin, running out from the front of him onto the pillow. He follows it up, tracing it with his fingers until he hits the front of his face, the cool pinpricks dotting up and down his cheeks at the hairs' points of contact. He shifts against the current again, turning until he's _mostly_ untied from Gerry, turning to face him on the thin frame of the couch. 

"...Sorry." He manages, eyes still struggling to stay open as Gerry's face sits in front of him, bemused smile he can see couch cushions through. 

"Force of habit, or do you really not have a bed in here?" 

Jon shakes his head, eyes already given up on wakefulness, and he jams one arm uncomfortably under the pillow, arching through the air over his head. 

"I'm not used to having company, spectral or not." He yawns, 

"Just try not to concentrate too hard so we don't get stuck here. I'm not worrying about anything like that until I'm awake." 

Gerry snorts, "You're the one dropping yourself on top of me and _I'm_ getting lectured, am I? No promises." 

“We're _both_ lucky you were out of it,” Jon grumbles, and he pushes his back flat against the back of the couch to get out of Gerry, already feeling him start to _hum_ back to reality as his mind wakes up. 

Gerry makes room, rolls over enough not to get _trapped_ in Jon, arm reaching over the top of Jon's head as Jon spins in a flurry of discomfort and limbs. They finally manage some semblance of organization, arms crossed over shoulders and hips, punctuated with the familiar friendly taunt of Gerry's laugh. 

When they kiss, it's not a surprise: faces sat an inch apart with Jon's arm laid over Gerry's, fingers brushing through the barely-there fabric of his t-shirt, Gerry's hand lightly tense on Jon's hip, the first plunge into the intimate reality of night with Gerry's new body. Jon feels the memory of lipstick on the cusp of their meeting, feels the slight nerves in the inconsistent waver of a bottom lip that pulls lightly back, then reunites for a second iteration of soft, sweet pressure: hesitant unity their mouths share under shaking hands. Jon feels Gerry's hair roll under his thumb, feels the connection of Gerry on his back teeth as he mirrors the motion, runs lightly under Jon's skin in his thrilled hurry. 

It's not a surprise, but it still connects with Jon's stomach, rumbles up and presses the reality of its inevitability up into his ribcage, swells the thrill into his lungs. 

Still two short, still gasping for breath one extra inch. 

When Gerry feels the inside of Jon's cheek, mist and membrane on his thumb, he throws a bleary apology over Jon's lips, scrambling tone under intertwining knots of hair. Jon doesn't tell him how much he doesn't mind, how he delights in the intimacy of that slip from cohesion, the integration of physicality and emotion: just smiles and says, "it's alright" over the wet metal of Gerry's lips. 

Another hand through skin, fingers twitching quickly through bone before Gerry pulls them off, breaks his mouth to one side of Jon's, 

"S-sorry, I'll stop trying to-- put my hand on you," He offers. 

"Please don't--" comes, faster than Jon means it, hand already looping through the bands around Gerry's wrist, dragging him back to his skin. 

"O...okay." Is all Gerry can manage, breathy over Jon's mouth, drifting his focus into the sensation of marrow as a thumb sinks into Jon's rib. He feels the sharp intake of breath from Jon, the slight hitch in his return as Gerry's mouth presses back over Jon's. His kisses are slow, slightly spacey, and it reminds Gerry's pulse how to run when he feels the way Jon's hands can't stop moving, testing every inch of space for just a moment, attention darting from lip to fingertip without time to breathe. And Jon _does_ forget to breathe a few times, doing these awful gasping intakes of air when he remembers, and Gerry can feel himself smile onto Jon's cheek when his head turns for the momentary escape. 

“Christ, I’m not good at this.” Jon gripes onto the side of Gerry’s jaw after a belated breath becomes a cough. He feels Gerry’s chuckle mirrored back against his face, the fond hand that sweeps over the small of his back. 

“I’m having fun.” Gerry reassures, feels the small smile that Jon pulls against his skin as he does. 

“Gerry, before, ah—before we _continue_ I was—I was wondering what my skin, felt like?” 

There’s a hand looped into his collar, Jon’s finger sinking lightly into his collar bone, where in theory he knows solid resistance should sit, fight the invading digit. It’s a reassuring pressure: something solid and tactile, close to his heart. He swallows a memory of air and saliva. 

“Um, it’s—nice? It’s, uh, really nice, actually.” Gerry fumbles, pausing his hand before it makes another pass across Jon’s back. Jon’s laugh in return is sharp: a high chuckle sewn through with nerves. 

“Th—that’s...thank you, Gerry. I, um. I more meant, ah...I was wondering if I’m still the right... _temperature._ " 

Gerry squints at this, hand stilling for a moment as he pulls back to meet Jon’s eyes. 

“Sorry, what?” 

“You know,” Jon gestures, hand spinning a lazy circle above his head that does _nothing_ to illustrate his point to Gerry, 

“If I’m still—if I’m warm? Like a...like a person ought to be.” 

Understanding in a gentle wave over Gerry’s face, then eyes cast down to scrutinize their positions on Jon’s skin. 

“I’m not sure I’m the best man for the job on that one.” He admits, hand still lightly wafting through skin, 

“Everything kind-of feels a bit...cold.” 

“Oh, I’m--I’m sorry.” Jon frets, knits eyebrows, frowns in endlessly misplaced concern. Gerry laughs, brushes a hair off of Jon’s tensing face. 

“Sure. Really sounds like something you ought to be feeling guilty for. You’re _certainly_ in charge of temperature control in the afterlife, aren’t you?” 

He feels the huff along the side of his face, feels the stillness of his stomach offset by laughter. 

“Here, let me try and compare, then.” 

Another sharp breath from Jon when one hand runs along his hip, slow and methodical: calculating. Jon holds it in, just to be safe. 

“Hmm. Alright.” Gerry rubs thumb along fingers, then hoists himself up on the other palm: stretching over Jon’s head to reach the wood of the neighbouring table, running over its layer of shellac. 

“Oh—you’ve got them here, too.” Jon notes, and for a second what Gerry feels is a web of static and movement from the inside of his hip, crackling and sporadic as it spreads its way through the bone. There’s a tight swallow, a tensing of stomach that Jon quickly notes, catching himself as he moves his hand back out. 

“Sorry—” He fumbles, hand hovered over the inkwell eye his thumb has sunk into without his thinking, impulsive poke of inviting imagery. Gerry squeezes a note out through teeth, hand braced on solid wood. 

“Little— _warning_ might be nice next time, Jon,” he breathes, setting himself back down beside Jon. 

“Sorry.” And Jon’s face always _says_ it, loud and visceral over the soft tone of his words, screaming streak of eyebrows and pinched muscles that broadcasts anxious horror at his wandering hands. Gerry grabs one—the one still nervously hovered in the air, caught in its own apologetic hesitation—and sinks a thumb into the centre, runs it under his lips. 

Gerry’s smiling behind the hand, not committed to a kiss, just skin resting over tacky lipstick as he grins. 

_“I’ll live_.” 

Jon swats him on the arm. 

“You’re alright, by the way. Warmer than the table, at least. There’s worse things I’ve sunk my hands into by far.” 

“I’m not sure being marginally warmer than _inanimate objects_ in my _unheated flat_ is actually all that reassuring,” Jon drones, expression flattening at Gerry, 

“But...thank you. For... _humouring_ me.” 

“Are you _actually_ this severe in this kind of context, or are you just hamming it up for fun at this point?” Gerry asks. 

“Forgive me a little _dourness_ when I’ve got inhumanity on the mind, Gerry. Becoming a _thing_ is a bit of a sore subject, recently.” 

Gerry commits to actual kisses, now, two only: the centre of Jon’s hand, his middle knuckle. Jon pretends he can’t hear himself swallow. 

“Inhuman’s not all bad. Got sort of an eyeball contact high from you poking me in the eye, at least.” 

“I’ve never poked you in the _eye—_ " Jon deflects, feels warmth and teeth through the back of his hand as Gerry laughs. He watches Gerry’s hand as it releases his own, pulls up a corner of his shirt to let his hip stare up at Jon. 

Jon’s mouth and voice are both a small “o” as he frets at his collar. He doesn’t hold eyes with the staring skin, pulling his own back onto Gerry’s. 

“...What did it feel like?” Is Jon’s venture, then, and he’s careful to ask it plainly, to weigh down the force of his tongue. Gerry takes a moment, flicking the hoop dangling from his septum as he thinks. 

“Interesting,” is Gerry’s summary, his face and eyes still focused as he churns the memory over in his mind, coaxes it into speech. 

“Real... _symmetrical_ sort of feeling. Like you’re trying to... _line up_ all the electric currents in me. A little _jarring,_ there, when I’m just trying to lean over and poke some cedar.” 

“Would you—would you want to feel it again? If there was…warning?” Jon pitches, and this time he _does_ meet the tattoo’s pointed stare, its ink-laden potential. 

“It might—be nice, yeah.” Gerry admits, face hot as he watches Jon's careful movements, slow and deliberate as he lifts up Gerry's hand. He stares down the knuckles, and Gerry stares at him, expectant note of wet worry hung between them. Then, slowly, a thumb rubs across his second knuckles, a low, “ _oh_ ” rumbling out of Gerry as he feels his joints line up, smoothen, round themselves out. He feels the prickle of electricity in the space between his bones, like tiny hands gripping their edges, stretching them taut to inspect. He feels the shape of them, their data and internal logic, and he sighs. 

“Alright?” Jon ventures. Gerry nods, eyes closed in focus, swimming in the information of _feeling_. 

Another finger passes through his knuckles, deeper this time, closer to the palm, and he begins to see the numbers that calculate his being: the symbols of his existence. Jon watches him carefully, sees him through a disorienting brick of information, a beautiful cascade of static-lined data that rolls over every inch of his skull, coats it sweetly in molten wax. 

“What does it—what does it feel like?” Jon ventures, and Gerry's brows furrow, focused through a gasp as Jon's thumb glides into his wrist. 

“It's—it's like,” And Gerry has to fight for words under it for a moment, the rush of knowledge and constant swell of information, the shifting forms of communication, 

“Is there a flattering way to say it feels like you're spying on it? Like the— the making of a complex network of everything that belongs to how we're put together, that it's—fuck—that it's beyond what's seen and you've dug your hands in and begun to _inspect_ it, to open it up and—present it back to itself. Like you're cracking open my atoms and spying on them.” 

And Jon looks, not _at_ something but from _within_ it, his fingers deep in the building blocks of Gerry, feeling the makeup of him, the transient existence of his master through the touch of hand crafting Eye touched by hand, the shape of the electricity that binds him together, and Jon's voice is all vapour and harp strings as he breathes out a, 

“ _Yes,_ ” 

Entranced by the core of Gerry, the space between sparks that binds him from the rest of the world. 

“Yes,” He says again, still _surrounded_ , still _enveloped_ , 

“That sounds… _exactly_ right…” 

Their kiss is disorienting this time, filled with too much information about nerve endings and currents and messages carried to the brain, about what hangs in space and carries their communication, back and forth. Jon's hand is on Gerry's back, clumsy, jammed up under the hem if his shirt as he feels the swell of information at the core of Gerry's spine. 

“These ones—” He breathes, and he's still dizzy, mind assigning colour and meaning to the breath that falls over Gerry's mouth, 

“Am I allowed to touch these? A-as well?” 

Jon can see the sound waves, superimposed, when Gerry breathes back, 

“Be my guest.” 

👻👻👻

When Jon is hovered over Gerry, fingers plucking at the notes of Gerry’s spine, realization begins to dawn, to capture the image of him laid out under the other, all sound and exploration. 

“Oh, fuck, this was stupid—” He starts, struggling to sit up in uneven currents, swirling patterns of his own matter tugging his vision in a vortex of observation. It takes Jon a moment to track, lost in sensation, until his mind catches up with his body, hand brought tightly to his chest. Gerry’s head is light, information ripped from cortex too quickly, swaying lightly as he presses fingers to the bridge of his nose, behind metal. 

“I can’t— _shouldn’t_ be getting this hot and magically heavy if I can’t _do_ anything with it, now, should I?” He expands, laughing dryly onto the ball of his hand. 

“Sorry, I can't really…have sex with you. We should stop this.” 

Jon's eyes are wide then quickly recovered, hand still resting on ribcage as his mind climbs back down from the high. 

“O-oh, no, that's alright, Gerry, ah—me, me either?” 

Gerry's still _up_ , he thinks. His head swims, grasps at meaning, evaporates itself into his eardrums. 

“ _What_?” 

“I-I'm asexual? As well?” Jon offers, still watching the tension on Gerry's body, the braid of skin between his eyes, 

“I assume you mean—oh, unless it was just the whole ‘ghost' thing, I— either way, I have…no reason to push, regardless.” 

“…Huh.” Is all Gerry can muster, thumb braced under the metal of his lip as he stares at the fraying fabric of the couch. He offers Jon nothing but silence for a moment, and when he speaks, it's slow, with the newly forming concepts of a processing mind. 

“Well. That's sort of a boon, then, isn't it? I'm not exactly…caught up on all my _terminology_ I guess.” 

“Oh, god, no, I wasn't, either. My, ah, my college girlfriend essentially had to force me to read about it after I apparently made “excessive" comments about, ah. My failure to be a _functional_ boyfriend. She was _not_ impressed.” Jon laughs.

“Honestly, I'd kind of figured I was just a little too…messed up over the whole, lifetime of magic trauma deal.” Gerry admits, and his eyes cast to the side, under slowly relaxing muscle, 

“Didn't think it was something I'd be running into, you know? Someone else not being able to handle it.” 

“Well. It's unhandleable.” Jon cuts, dryly, and it sends a laugh singing out of Gerry, thrilled and relieved. Jon joins him in it, drops his head onto Gerry's shoulder as he knits a hand through Gerry's fingers, smiling into the crook of his neck. He slides the hand down his arm, then, still exploring, still _curious_ , thrilled at the safety in the lack of expectation. 

“Ah, actually, I've—I've never been with someone who also…wasn't interested in sex,” Jon starts, and he lifts his head from Gerry's shoulder to meet his eyes, 

“Do we just sit here and keep _prodding_ each other's tattoos until we get bored?” 

And Gerry laughs, warm and full, fingers sliding past the skin of Jon's arms as he takes them in his hands. 

“I'm still enjoying it if you are.”


End file.
